School starts this week

Well, its that time of year again where we get all excited about school starting up again! Samantha's a senior (duh, can tell that from the senior pics, right?), Brendan's a 4th grader and Makayla's making her way through her 2nd year of preschool.

Samantha and Brendan are both going to attend eCOT this year (you know, the Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow... online public school, basically.) Sammie has come along really well with it and I enjoy the fact that I get to observe what she learns much closer than with the traditional public schools.

Brendan is new to eCOT this year. We decided that he really needs the additional supervision that being at home can give him. For some reason, he has really had a difficult time abiding by the rules that the school has set up. He's also had a difficult time attracting a satisfactory group of children to be friends with and generally would find himself getting into trouble at the result of another child's prompting. We are praying that being schooled at home will be a VERY positive thing happening in his little life. I think our toughest challenge will be helping him be a social butterfly. He'll need some good influences to help him forget the bad ones he was exposed to at the elementary school he went to. Thankfully, he's starting to branch out at church and get to know the kids his age. I'm sure that will be a perfect place to learn how to be a good friend. :-)

Makayla's preschool experience has been an extremely positive presence in her life. Maki has some emotional and behavioral issues that are a result of her bio-mom's use of drugs and alcohol when she was pregnant with Maki. The preschool she goes to is actually through the school system and she's already on an I.E.P. which is why she's eligible for the preschool program. They've given her speech therapy and worked with her on things like her "lack of" attention, defiant behaviors, interrupting others, etc... She's not been officially diagnosed with any acronyms (thankfully), but we're hoping that the early intervention will alleviate the need for excessive intervention later in life.

Sorry for the long update today... It's pretty out of character for me to go on and on... but since I actually had a few minutes of semi-quiet today I thought I'd go all out!

Have a gracious day!